I have been using that pyramin I wrote about last week to cause sleep paralysis with not luck whatsoever. I have had some semi lucid dreams but nothing else. I have not even came close to the paralysis state this week.
If you like the way the pyramid looks you should leave it there because anything that makes your place more pleasing to you wards off negs.
I got up this morning, put in some ear plugs and went back to sleep to try for a projection. At the end I dreamed I was helping people build a house and a big heavy door fell on me. I laid there underneath it for a while not moving, I woke up some and found that I have mild paralysis. It wasn't enough for me to turn into a projection but it made me think.
I bet the sensation of pressure helps to give you paralysis, I also think that spending time in a dream staying very still helps to relax you and bring on paralysis if you wake up.
Of course the problem is that we don't usually have much awareness in dreams, otherwise we couold just go lucid and OBE from there. But
Spectral Dragon has a good meditation that is centered around the sensation of pressure and it does help me to get hypnagoics pretty fast:
http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10449